Google Reveals America’s Most Misspelled Words

Some of these are VERY surprising (see Wisconsin, for example).

Marie Rossiter

10 months ago

As more than 200 students gather to compete in this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, Google Trends decided to get in on the word games, too.

The analysts took an unscientific look at the most commonly misspelled words across America. Researchers compiled Google searches of “how to spell _____” from each state. After compiling the data from Jan. 1 through April 30, the results showed each state’s most misspelled word.

Longer Words Aren’t Necessarily Harder To Spell

Google also broke down the results by word length. Words ranged from one to five letters all the way up to 20+ letters. Surprisingly, the mid-range words caused the most problems, here’s a look at the breakdown:

Five letters or less: 7 states

Six to 10 letters: 38 states

11 to 19 letters: 3 states

20 or more letters: 2 states

The longest word in the bunch — supercalifragilisticexpialidocious — has 34 letters and stumped both Connecticut and West Virginia. Chances are these searches happened after a “Mary Poppins” viewing.

Excuse Me, You Can’t Spell What?

Perhaps the most head-scratching spelling search comes from Wisconsin. Well it looks like residents of the state have a bit of trouble spelling where they come from. Yes, it’s true. Wisconsin was the most-searched spelling word for the state—most likely

So what is the most searched spelling word in your state? Find it on the full spelling search list, in alphabetical order.

Alabama: pneumonia

Alaska: schedule

Arizona: tomorrow

Arkansas: chihuahua

California: beautiful

Colorado: tomorrow

Connecticut: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Delaware: hallelujah

Washington, D.C.: ninety

Florida: receipt

Georgia: gray

Hawaii: people

Idaho: quote

Illinois: appreciate

Indiana: hallelujah

Iowa: vacuum

Kansas: diamond

Kentucky: beautiful

Louisiana: giraffe

Maine: pneumonia

Maryland: special

Massachusetts: license

Michigan: pneumonia

Minnesota: beautiful

Mississippi: nanny

Missouri: maintenance

Montana: surprise

Nebraska: suspicious

Nevada: available

New Hampshire: diarrhea

New Jersey: twelve

New Mexico: bananas

New York: beautiful

North Carolina: angel

North Dakota: dilemma

Ohio: beautiful

Oklahoma: patient

Oregon: sense

Pennsylvania: sauerkraut

Rhode Island: liar

South Carolina: chihuahua

South Dakota: college

Tennessee: chaos

Texas: maintenance

Utah: disease

Vermont: Europe

Virginia: delicious

Washington: pneumonia

West Virginia: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

Wisconsin: Wisconsin

Wyoming: priority

Disclaimer: The Scripps National Spelling Bee is an event put on by The E.W. Scripps Company, Simplemost Media’s parent company.